Location, location, location

Social media is now an authentic part of the digital marketing mix as more and more businesses are starting to see the value in being part of the social conversation around their brand.

Localised services have started to play a major part in the evolution of online technology, particularly with the ability of smartphones to localise the online and social experience, so location based services (LBS) could well be the next major battleground. In the two opposing corners you have the dedicated platforms (Foursquare, Gowalla, Scvngr) and online heavyweights (Facebook Places, Google Latitude), and it’s now a question of seeing who comes out on top.

The idea is fairly simple – brands build up awareness by way of a social audience and then localise that audience using LBS into offline engagement and measurable business tracked back to the original awareness that a social media presence delivered.

There are already case studies coming to the fore of creative implementations of this, with KLM’s Winter 2010/2011 campaign grabbing a number of headlines. This video explains how the campaign worked.

The interesting thing about this campaign is the behaviour it induced; or rather the behaviours it didn’t need to induce. Most marketing and advertising campaigns talk of a call to action; that one hook or action that will bring your customers in to respond to your campaign.

KLM effectively turned this model on its head. They moulded their campaign around actions the user was taking anyway rather than asking the user to take an action. The users were ‘interacting’ with the brand already by referencing them, commenting on them and socially checking in online without any expectation of a return by the brand – a casual check-in. KLM worked their way into that behaviour, coming up with a great loyalty and engagement campaign with the simple aim of spreading joy amongst their customers and measuring the return that brought.

The increase in customer loyalty and positive PR, as well as the positioning this will have given them as an innovative brand, will impact on coverage and buzz surrounding their future campaigns and could prove to be the real value of these social media efforts.